Venture Capital Update – 1Q 2015

Source: Michael Greeley, General Partner, Foundation Medical Partners

Now that all of the 1Q15 venture capital investment and fundraising data are in, some interesting themes are emerging. It is quite apparent that portfolio companies are able to stay private much longer, raising significantly larger rounds of capital in order to do so. This is in large measure facilitated by non-VC’s moving “down market” and investing in break-out early stage companies. Liquidity in 1Q15 also showed signs of weakness as both M&A and IPO volumes were down markedly for ventured-backed companies. The venture industry raised $7.3 billion in 1Q15 and is on pace to once again raise between $25 – $30 billion for the year.

Grinding through all of the 1Q15 investment data does not necessarily provide additional clarity as to where the private capital markets are heading. The number of new venture capital funds declined markedly from the torrid pace set in 2014 but new investment activity continue to crush it. Clearly non-VC’s are still piling into the early stage marketplace, looking for returns.

Specifically, 62 venture funds raised $7.3 billion in 1Q15 (recently updated from the formal announcement of a few weeks ago), which was a decline of 23% in the number of funds but was a 26% increase in the amount of dollars raised when compared to 4Q14 – 80 funds and $5.8 billion, respectively. In 1Q14, 58 funds raised $8.9 billion so it does appear that the venture industry has settled into a fundraising range of $20 – $30 billion annually, which is what it was for much of the last decade between the recessions. It also appears that the “barbell” phenomenon of the venture industry continues along and is underscored further by some specific highlights in the 1Q15 data. As a point of reference the overall US venture industry is estimated to be about $200 billion of capital under management.

42 of the 62 funds raised were less than $100 million in size

Of those 62 funds, only 18 were considered “first time” funds, the largest of which was F/K/A Ventures which was – truth be told – the IT investment team from Atlas Venture when the firm split up

The five largest funds raised $3.8 billion – 8% of the funds raised 51% of the dollars

32 funds were less than $25 million in size…4 of them were less than $1.0 million (not a typo)

The average size was $118 million which is a meaningless (or misleading) number when the median is $20 million

The largest fund raised was $1.6 billion – congrats Bessemer – which was 2,909x the size of the smallest

Interestingly, the pattern of hedge fund commitments has also changed significantly in the past few years with it bifurcating to support either much smaller or very large managers. Both ends of the spectrum captured most of the dollars, leaving mid-sized managers to struggle to raise capital. In 2014, “small” hedge funds – those with less than $5 billion under management (even though one of those funds is over two-thirds of what the entire VC industry raised last quarter) – raised ~50% of the total $76.4 billion of hedge fund commitments. In 2012, large hedge funds raised $93 billion while these same small hedge funds suffered aggregate withdrawals of $63 billion. Whiplash.

Venture investment in 1Q15 totaled $13.4 billion in 1,020 companies. This is nearly a 10% decline in dollars invested and an 8% decline in companies when compared to 4Q14, but is an increase of 26% on a dollars basis from 1Q14 on about the same number of companies. Quite clearly the trend for venture-backed companies to raise larger and later rounds of private capital continues. And it is this phenomenon which further exacerbates the “funding gap” now so present in the venture marketplace. Arguably, non-VC investors have plunged into the venture asset class looking for greater returns.

It is not surprising then that seven of the top ten largest venture financings in 1Q15 were in consumer facing companies, which has drawn so much investor attention. In fact the top ten companies raised $3.8 billion in the first 90 days of 2015 or stated in another more shocking way – 1% of all companies which raised venture capital in 1Q15 soaked up 29% of the dollars invested. Some other interesting nuggets in the data:

Seed activity continues to decline significantly and was only $125 million (26 companies) – admittedly, we may a “quality of data” issue here as this just seems wrong

Expansion and Later Stage rounds captured 72% of dollars invested in 1Q15 as compared to 61% in the prior quarter, underscoring the rotation to more mature companies

The largest category continues to be Software where 434 companies raised $5.6 billion for an average round size of $13.3 million

Sadly, the Networking and Equipment category only raised $99 million across 9 lonely companies

Liquidity ultimately drives flows of capital into the venture industry – we all know that. The industry’s ability to recycle capital is critical but may also be a poor trailing indicator of future success. This past year witnessed exceptionally strong M&A and IPO activity with $48 billion of venture-backed M&A transactions (there were 479 in all, but only 139 disclosed the transaction values, so the total is undoubtedly much higher) and 116 IPO’s which raised $15 billion of capital.

The story in 1Q15 is more disconcerting as there have only been $2 billion of announced venture-backed M&A transactions (86 in total, 16 of which had announced values) and a mere sliver of IPO activity – $1.4 billion raised across 17 companies (13 of which were biotech companies). Nearly 25% of total 1Q15 M&A volume was due to Under Armour’s acquisition of Myfitnesspal, evidently leaving a large number of modest trade sales behind. Clearly 2015 is off to a more measured pace which may limit fundraising activity in 2016, although there are nearly 55 companies currently filed publicly for IPO’s.

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